MPAA sued for using hacker to steal private files

On Wednesday, a lawsuit was filed against the MPAA for dealings with a computer specialist (hacker) who was used to steal information from a company they were suing. The MPAA up to no good? Ridiculous, right? After all, a company which along with the RIAA makes such a big fuss about the legal and moral implications of downloading mp3s and movies should themselves be on the up and up. Now, however, they are being sued by Valence Media, the parent company behind Torrentspy. According to the lawsuit, a substantial sum was paid to the individual for him to illegally access private data stored on Torrentspy's servers, and the man himself has apparently come outright and admitted that such is true. The MPAA of course is denying it entirely:

"These claims (by Torrentspy) are false," Kori Bernards, the MPAA's vice president of corporate communications, said in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "Torrentspy is trying to obscure the facts to hide the fact that they are facilitating thievery. We are confident that our lawsuit against them will be successful because the law is on our side."If even half of the suit has merit, it could spell big trouble for the MPAA as well as other companies seeking litigation against file sharers. While the “significant proof” they mention isn't available yet, we'll eventually to get see what really happened.